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Trump seeks extra US$1.6b for NASA to push return to moon

By Reuters

Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 11:38By Reuters

In this Oct 12, 2018 photo, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine meets with the media at the US embassy in Moscow. (YURI KADOBNOV / AFP)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked Congress on Monday to increase NASA spending next year by an extra US$1.6 billion as a "down payment" to accommodate the accelerated goal of returning Americans to the surface of the moon by 2024.

The proposed increase by the Trump administration would bring NASA's total spending level for the 2020 fiscal year to US$22.6 billion

The increased funding request, announced by President Donald Trump on Twitter, comes nearly two months after Vice President Mike Pence declared the objective of shortening by four years NASA's previous timeline for putting astronauts back on the moon for the first time since 1972.

The proposed increase would bring NASA's total spending level for the 2020 fiscal year to US$22.6 billion. The bulk of the increase is earmarked for research and development for a human lunar landing system, according to a summary provided by NASA.

"Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars," Trump tweeted on Monday. "I am updating my budget to include an additional US$1.6 billion so that we can return to Space in a BIGWAY!"

NASA previously aimed to return crewed spacecraft to the lunar surface by the year 2028, after first putting a "Gateway" station into orbit around the moon by 2024.

The newly accelerated goal - an endeavor likely to cost tens of billions of dollars - comes as NASA has struggled with the help of private partners to resume human space missions from US soil for the first time since the shuttle program ended in 2011.

"I’m worried that without proper congressional buy-in, this budget amendment is at best, a massive waste of time, and at worst, pushing risky political timelines that could set NASA back for years," Larson told Reuters.

"The next leap in space will be fueled by commercial companies changing the way we do business in space while creating new technologies and innovations," he said.

Space launch system

Bridenstine said US$651 million of the extra funding would go toward NASA's Space Launch System — the super-heavy rocket whose decade-long development led by Boeing Co has been hampered by delays and cost overruns — as well as design and construction of the Orion crew capsule.

The US Apollo program, NASA's forerunner to the effort at returning humans to Earth's natural satellite, tallied six manned missions to the moon from 1969 to 1972.

So far, only two other nations have conducted controlled "soft" landings on the moon - the former Soviet Union and China.

But those were with unmanned robot vehicles.

Bridenstine said he was optimistic that Trump's request would draw bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.

The amendment envisions a simplified blueprint for the Lunar Gateway, the planned space outpost in lunar orbit that will serve as a stepping stone for sending crewed spacecraft to the moon's surface.

NASA officials said they would turn to private companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin for proposals on the design of Gateway and the human landing system.

Bezos, the richest person in the world and founder of Amazon.com Inc, last Thursday unveiled his space company's mock-up of a lunar lander being built by Blue Origin, the latest company after Lockheed Martin and Boeing to do so.

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